A Bachelor Establishment by Isabella Barclay

Elinor Bascombe, widowed and tied to an impoverished estate, has learned to ask little of life. With no hope of leaving, the years have passed her by.

Lord Ryde, exiled abroad after a scandal, has returned to strip his estate and make a new start in America.

A chance encounter changes their plans, plunging Elinor and Lord Ryde into adventure and not a little peril until, finally, they are forced to confront the mystery of what happened on That Night, all those years ago.

Are they both so entangled in the riddles of the past that they are about to miss this one last opportunity for future happiness?

The blurb actually does a really good job of explaining the storyline so I’m not going to write any more on that.

But I do want to say that the blurb doesn’t make it clear just how funny this book actually is.

We first meet ELINOR BASCOMBE and JACK, LORD RYDE when Elinor nearly rides over him (accidentally of course), causing him to end up in a ditch:

“‘ I’ve been in a ditch, Charles. Ridden down by a madwoman. Have you ever actually seen a horse from underneath? My life flashed before my eyes. Even including those two days in Prague we agreed to forget.’ “

Then there’s the banter between the two protaganists which is just lovely and perfectly in tune with what I expect from a traditional Regency romance:

“ ‘I thank you for your concern, madam, but I am not so aged and infirm as you apparently believe.’ ‘No,’ she agreed, affably. ‘You couldn’t be.’ “

There’s loads more of this type of conversation and descriptive passages throughout the book but you’ll have to buy the book yourself to read more 🙂

The mystery surrounding The Night is eked out through the book, and though it’s easy enough to pick up on some of the clues (Elinor’s relationship with her late husband for example) some of it really does come as a surprise at the end of the story.

What do I dislike about the book?

Well it saddens me that this is the only traditional Regency romance that Ms Barclay (aka Jodi Taylor) has written to date. I’d love to see more from her and hopefully she’ll come back to this genre at some stage.

Other than that though there was nothing I disliked about this book. I highly recommend it for anyone who likes witty banter between mature adults; a dash of mystery and lashings of romance.